Page 70 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

And hearing him say that is enough to send me over the verge.

“Rowan,” I call out as pleasure spirals through me, and he kisses me again as if needing to swallow his name from my lips. I can feel him pushing down my underwear. I help, using my legs to get them the rest of the way off, and then, while pleasure is still pounding through me, I feel his tip pressing at my opening.

Oh my God, yes. Yes.

He pushes in slowly, as if he knows he’s big even though I’m so ready for him. There’s a delicious tightness that sends fresh pleasure coursing through me as he finally bottoms out. His mouth is still on mine, giving me soul-sucking kisses that make me feel like I can never go a minute without kissing this man, but he pulls back slightly, his eyes on me.

“Are you okay?”

Am I okay? I’ve never felt better—fuller and more satisfied, yet filled with the need for more. “Better than okay,” I say on a gasp. “You feel amazing.”

He’s propped on one elbow, looking down at me, but he lifts his thumb to my lips and traces them. “You feel so fucking good I can’t stand it,” he says. I capture his thumb in my mouth and suck, mesmerized by the way it makes his pupils dilate. When he pops it out, he kisses me again, his hard length pulsing inside of me, his tongue in my mouth.

He starts moving again, slowly, the friction driving me insane, and I wrap my legs around his hips to bring him in even deeper. I still need more of him. He’s moving slowly, consciously so, and the thought flits into my head that this isn’t sex, it’s making love. I tell myself to stop being delusional, because I’ve only known this man a week, and he’d probably laugh at the term “make love.” But the slow rhythm is driving me insane, hitting me exactly where I need him to—until it’s not enough either.

I break our kiss. “I need you harder, Rowan, faster.”

His grin is radiant. “As you wish,” and I feel his muscles contract as he pushes into me hard, pulling a surprised sound out of. I reach back and grab one of the fancy swirls of metal from the bedframe, tightening my grip as he keeps up the faster rhythm.

He sucks in a breath and grabs my hand with his, pinning it, and it turns me on even more, making me buck up to meet him. “I like seeing you splayed out for me,” he says in a harsh whisper. But he thrusts into me only twice more before grabbing my hips and rolling onto his back, putting me on top of him.

Still inside of me, he cradles my hips with his hands. “Take what you want from me. I want to watch you ride my cock.”

And as I start to move over him, setting the pace, reveling in the sensual power he’s given me, he props himself up andstarts kissing and sucking on my breasts. “That’s it, Princess,” he whispers. “You feel so damn good.”

“So do you,” I say, gasping as he thrusts his hips up, hitting the perfect spot. “There, there.”

He listens, his face knit with concentration. He hits that spot again and again, sending bolts of pleasure through me. It’s never been this easy for me before, this good.

He’s watching my face as I come, his hand palming my butt, and then he urges me to lower my upper body to him so our chests are pressed together. He keeps moving inside me, his movements intense and fast now, urgent, and fresh pleasure spirals through me. To be needed and wanted by him is a joy like nothing I’ve ever known.

“Kennedy,” he says, his voice guttural. “I’m going to come.”

“Come for me,” I say, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like I’m the kind of person who says things like that. If I am that person, it’s only for him—for this man who’s sensitive, even if he doesn’t want to be, and sweet, even if he’d never admit it. For this man who brings out a different side of me.

He kisses me fiercely and thrusts one more time, his hand pushing my butt to him, so he’s even deeper, and I feel him come inside me. We stay like that for a long moment, pressed as closely together as two people can be, and then he rolls us onto our sides.

I immediately want him back inside me after he pulls out, which is stupid, because I know we can hardly go about our days connected to each other.

“I need to go wash up,” I tell him, because Olive told me she once got a horrible UTI because she didn’t pee after sex. No thank you. I’d prefer to keep my illnesses in this house fake. I take care of business in the connected bathroom, pausing only to look in the mirror. My cheeks are full of color, and I look happy. Something I haven’t felt a lot of in this house other than in thisroom, where I can celebrate Christmas and be with Rowan and Harry, the only two people here who care about me.

Are my feelings about Rowan so intense because I’ve been stuck here, unable to see anyone else or work or do the things that usually fill my life with purpose? Would we have hit it off if our paths had crossed in a different way?

It doesn’t take me long to dismiss the thought. I may not have given Rowan any serious thought if I’d met him a different way, but that’s only because I wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to form any intimacy with him. He’s not someone who gives himself away to just anyone. Most people would look at him and see a grump, an old man living in a young man’s body, but he’s so much more than that. And I never would have known if not for this stupid show.

I leave the bathroom and take a moment to admire him. He hasn’t gotten dressed, but the white sheet is pulled up to his hips, and the Christmas lights from his gift are casting multi-colored light onto it.

“Come here,” he says, smiling at me. I’m so relieved there’s no regret in his eyes that I do it without thinking, lying beside him and snuggling close like it’s where I’m supposed to be.

Like I’m not the star of a TV show who’s supposed to be engaged to another man inside of a month.

Good thing I have an idea for how to fix that.

CHAPTER TWENTY

ROWAN

I didn’t mean to fuck her. I specifically didn’t bring a condom because I wasn’t going to fuck her…and because I would have felt like a creep to sneak in here in the middle of the night with a condom in my pocket to give her the news that our friend is all right, but, oh, my grandmother basically poisoned him. I definitely didn’t mean to fuck her likethat, like it meant something. But I can feel deep in my bones that it did.

---